Roi du Potiron
by Quaxo
Summary: (ENGLISH!) Pre-movie. Halloweentown is a glum hamlet, where the citizens are repressed by their tyrant. It is left to one bright child to change things...


There is no reason why I should be starting this. I've got four stories started already, but I am compelled.  
  
As you know, by now I would hope, that most of the characters contained within are the property of one Tim Burton. Not me. I fear a 'peeved' Tim.  
  
Setting: Pre-movie.  
  
Roi du Potiron By Quaxo  
  
Contract. Relax. Contract. Relax.  
  
"They'll be here soon." The friendly young nurse with lovely red hair said uncertainly.  
  
"I'm sure they will." He replied, knowing it was far from the truth. His parents hadn't come to see him in four months, and they lived in the immediate area. He could understand that they didn't want to see him suffer, but he wasn't much up to this suffering business either. The nurse was lying to him because she thought it'd make him feel better, and he lied to her because him feeling better made her feel better. It was all complicatedly simple.  
  
"While we wait," He said, trying to hide the effort it took to force air through his vocal cords. "Why don't you read me more of my book?"  
  
"Oh, but Jack it's so morbid, and it's so close to Christmas, wouldn't you rather read something happier? People like you shouldn't ---" she broke off with a furious blush. "I'm sorry."  
  
"It's okay." He said lightly. "But you know what would make me feel better?" He said, flopping his head to the side bonelessly it seemed. His muscles were so weak now.  
  
"What?" She asked shyly.  
  
"If you gave me a kiss." He grinned as she flushed deeper.  
  
"Jack, the senior matron will have my head if catches me kissing a patient!" She protested.  
  
"But I don't want to die without having kissed one pretty girl. It would mean so much to me." He said pitiably, looking at her with what once were soulful eyes.  
  
Her features turned severe.  
  
"You're not dying, Jack."  
  
He hated it when they denied it. They were less afraid of frightening him and more afraid of admitting it to themselves. He was dying of cancer, at seventeen years of age. Being trapped in an iron lung was pretty damn good sign that he was on his way out 'into that good night'.  
  
"If I'm not dying," He said with a teasing smile. "Then read me my book."  
  
"You are incorrigible, Jack Skellington." The nurse said with a pout, but retrieved his book. "What page were we on?"  
  
"Four-hundred and twenty I believe."  
  
She opened the large tomb and began to read.  
  
"'And blood was simply flowing, dripping from him, dripping!' Fenya kept exclaiming. This horrible detail was simply the product of her disorder imagination. But although not 'dripping,' Pyotr Ilyitch had himself seen those hands stained with blood, and had helped wash them. Moreover, the question he had to decide was not how soon the blood had dried, but where Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run with the pestle, or rather, whether it was really to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, and how could he satisfactorily ascertain. Pyotr Ilyitch persisted in returning to this point, and though he'd found nothing conclusive, yet he carried away a conviction that Dmitri Fyodorovitch could have gone nowhere but his father's house, and that therefore something must have happened there.'"  
  
His only worry about death was not if it would hurt, or if he'd go to heaven (seeing how many times the chaplain had given him last rites.), it was if he'd finish his book in time. He would be furious if he missed out on the ending because he'd died.  
  
***(-I-)**(-I-)***  
  
Jack Skellington was buried on his father's family plot, near his grandparents, and great aunts and uncles. His mother and father rarely visited, and there were no siblings to tend his plot. It was soon choked with weeds that were mowed down yearly by the gardener. Those whom he had grown up with soon forgot the lean giant of a boy with an easy smile as they moved on with their lives and had children, who lived and created more children before dying.  
  
Jack Skellington was lost to time.  
  
***(-I-)**(-I-)***  
  
There is not simply one universe in which life exists; there are many. They all live independently of each other, and this suits these universes fine because they would rather not interact with the other universes, rather like one avoids distasteful hick cousins. However, the universes still have family reunions, because they do share some similarities. And while some can avoid contact, some are forced to sit with each other for a day or two, trying to ignore each other's bad eating habits. Some are seated so close together that they are forced to trade souls, begrudgingly of course.  
  
***(-I-)**(-I-)***  
  
The witch cooed as she cradled the petite skeleton in her warted hands.  
  
"A skeleton m'am," She beamed. "Jus' like his daddy."  
  
"You're certain it's a he?" A foreboding voice said from a darkened corner.  
  
"Look at those hips, sir, if ya don't believe me." She held up the child. "Those aren't birthing hips there, no they aren't at all."  
  
The infant squawked loudly in seeming agreement.  
  
The sinister skeleton haunting the corner snorted and exited the room as the witch set about to swaddling the newborn.  
  
The child's mother would be returned to her husband and family as soon as the witch gave her the clearance of good health. The heir to Halloween Town, however, would stay with its monarch and the tot's father: Johannes Skellington.  
  
The witch frowned at the rambunctious child who grinned at her and babbled. She'd never met such a vocal child of this age. Hard to believe he was spawn of one of the surliest spirits in Halloweendom.  
  
"Did ya happen tah have any ideer what da King wanted ta name de lil un, I's needs it for da records yeh understan'?" She asked the fatigued banshee.  
  
"Jack," she said faintly. "After himself."  
  
The witch nodded and scribbled 'Jack Skellington' down on the dry parchment of the birth certificate.  
  
The babe wailed loudly, and the witch scurried for a bottle to feed him. She would be staying with the child until he was weaned, and she hoped by then that either the child had calmed or the King's temper leavened. It looked unlikely that either would happen.  
  
***(-I-)**(-I-)***  
  
Soo.. Give me your thoughts.? 


End file.
